Waste Land: a World In Permanent Crisis

One of the Financial Times' Books to Read in 2025 One of Foreign Policy's Most Anticipated Books of 2025 A darkly brilliant; wide-angled vision of our chaotic; globalised world; where present crises resonate with past tyrannies—from a bestselling geopolitical expert. We are entering a new era of global cataclysm; a deadly mix of war; climate change; great-power rivalry; rapid technological advancement; and the end of empire. In Waste Land; renowned world affairs author Robert D. Kaplan explains incisively how we got here and where we are going. Kaplan’s trademark sweep of history; literature; politics and philosophy draws parallels between today’s challenges and those of Germany’s interwar Weimar Republic. Today; too; every national disaster could spread across the world; given this century’s singular dilemmas—pandemics; recessions; urbanisation; mass migration; destabilisation under large-scale democracy and great-power conflict; and the intimate bonds forged by digital media. Could stability and historic liberalism; rather than mass democracy per se; save world populations from anarchic breakdown? Waste Land is a bracing glimpse into a future defined by twenty-first–century technology; but remarkably resonant with the past. The situation may be spiralling out of our control—unless our leaders act first.